and federal law requires schools to collect and sometimes sue. unlike most forms of debt, you can't get out of a student loan, not even by declaring bankruptcy. but with delinquencies rising, they're getting more aggressive about collecting, including taking their alumni to court. we found cases filed by yale and the university of pennsylvania. a 35% jump from the year before. the university has declined to comment. graph hopes his case starts a dialogue. >> reporter: let's start to talk about why is college so expensive. what are we getting for our money when we put our money into these institutions? >> reporter: it's a conversation universitys are willing to have, but they also want their money. >> such a tough situation. first of all, a lot of these graduates, they have all this debt, and they don't have a job and even if they find a job, it's going to take a long time to pay or $60,000, $100,000 or more. >> this is why universitys are going online to reduce that. tomorrow, in part two of our series, sharon efferson is going to report on the d